Key points:
- Career integration requires bold leadership and a visionary approach
- How higher ed responds to the changing needs of labor markets
- Students turn to faculty for career readiness, advice
- For more news on career readiness, visit eCN’s Teaching & Learning hub
In today’s rapidly changing market, is the gap between learning outcomes and industry outcomes widening? And, as our graduates join the workforce, is higher ed confident about our role in preparing them for the workforce?
If you feel satisfied with your close alignment, are your students aware of the skills they have gained in your program and how to communicate them? As we continue to develop our understanding of successful career integration, two vital components of this formula have become increasingly clear: 1) the actual acquisition of the skills; and 2) student awareness of the skills gained in their program.
If you are a higher education leader, you might think that career integration discussions are best left to department faculty and instructional designers with whom they work. However, in my experience, system-wide emphasis on career and workforce integration must be a concerted and deliberate focus from the top down. I say this with the full acknowledgment that top-down approaches are not beloved in higher education. Unfortunately, I also know, more than likely, that redistributing this task to faculty without administrative oversight will not motivate most faculty to change their curriculum. Instead, a dean, provost, or president must set the vision and expectations, loudly declaring that career integration is a non-negotiable curriculum requirement.
While career integration might feel overwhelming, you do not need a team of career services staff to make this effort possible. Although I would encourage bringing your career services team members to the table, a faculty member and an instructional designer can more than integrate career components. To help apply this theory, here are six action-oriented ways to begin incorporating career components into existing or new curricula.
1. Leverage job boards
Reviewing popular and niche job boards within the relevant field is a great way to stay on top of employer needs. Within job boards, you will find thousands of job descriptions filled with employer preferences and expectations. To help make this activity more digestible, approach this task strategically. Start with 50-100 job descriptions relevant to the course or program and begin to code the results to find common themes. I highly suggest using job descriptions nationwide to ensure your program is relevant beyond your immediate area. These themes (skills, knowledge, software, etc.) can guide course development to plan meaningful curriculum and instruction.
2. Tag skills to assignments
Transparently mapping industry-required skills to assignments is a helpful way for students to gain awareness of their aligned qualifications. For example, a student completing a case study may not be aware of the handful of skills they are gaining, such as problem-solving and critical thinking, and therefore might not be able to point back to those skills during an interview. If you want your students to talk confidently about the skills they gained while in your programs, then we can help create visibility by adding details about the skills directly to the prompt. To do so, do not make it hard for students to find this information–keep it connected to the prompt for clear visibility.
3. Add reflection points
Asking students to complete reflections on workforce-related components of their assignments, readings, and overall class instruction is another easy way to help them translate their knowledge into practice. Reflections can be low stakes in nature, so you don’t need to take too many points away from other activities, but the benefits of reflections for students are too great to skip. In a reflection, ask students to discuss the skills and knowledge they gained in the course and how they can use those skills in their future or current careers.
4. Use a portfolio tool
Electronic portfolios provide students with a chance to showcase their most relevant work to future employers. But when done well, portfolio tools can be multi-purpose. Beyond creating a space to showcase their work for employers, a portfolio requires students to think about the roles they are applying to and add the assignments they feel are most relevant. One of the most significant issues I see with portfolio integrations is requiring the upload of irrelevant assignments that might not showcase students in the best light. For best results, strategically plan how you encourage students to use portfolios.
5. Bring in industry experts
While this option is not always possible, bringing in industry experts can provide upcoming trends or insight that may be missing from the job boards. You can bring in experts for a simple conversation during the pre-planning stage, record a podcast-style video, invite them to a live lecture in your class, or send a copy of the course guide during development and ask for feedback. Industry experts are always happy to help as they benefit directly from well-prepared graduates.
6. Ask students to research
If you use a central design curriculum model and your curriculum is modified every 3-5 years, this one is for you. Create assignments within your course where you provide students the space to individually research employer needs and create an assignment showcasing their skills based on direct employer research. The more brevity you can give students here, the better. For example, if you limit students to a PowerPoint, you will likely get an 8- 10-slide deck listing the skills gained with examples. However, if you open this assignment and encourage students to align the product to their future roles, you will see a greater variety of formats, including pitch decks, sample lesson plans, detailed marking plans, and so much more.
Post-secondary educators hold the potential to prepare graduates for meaningful, impactful careers. Integrating career components into the curriculum ensures students acquire essential skills and recognize and articulate them confidently. However, this vital integration cannot be left to chance. Career integration requires bold leadership and a visionary approach, where deans, provosts, and presidents champion the cause and set clear collaboration expectations.
The vision of career component graduates is within our reach, but it requires us to act with purpose and commitment, and these six strategies are a great place to start.
Nicole Poff is the founder and CEO of EDCARTA. She is passionate about curriculum development, promoting student success, and reshaping the future of higher education.
- Will 25 percent of colleges consolidate? An update on a prediction - September 10, 2024
- How higher ed can stay ahead of growing cyber threats - September 9, 2024
- 3 essentials for successful supervisory relationships - September 6, 2024